Vet costs during this time.
Discussion
Daisy burst an anal gland this morning, she's always suffered with anal gland issues and I knew straight away what it was especially given she had been showing signs of discomfort over the last few days on and off.
Phoned the vets first thing, knowing they are only accepting emergencies on the premises, was told I'd get a call back for a telephone consultation, the cost being £38, which is the same as an on-site one.
Got the call back, and was prescribed pain killers and antibiotics which I could collect later; £76 in total.
Now I can afford £76 and I want Daisy sorted, however I do feel that £38 for 2.5 minutes on the phone is an awful lot of money, I didn't bring it up at the time as I know times are difficult currently and I appreciate there are premises, staff, costs etc that need to be paid for but to charge me £38 for a quick chat over the phone just seems wrong, especially as all three of my dogs are on their pet plan and have been for many years and they are all overdue their boosters and annual checkups due to CV19.
My daughter is coming up to the end of year 2 of a 3 year vet nurse degree and told me that her last placement are only charging £10 for a telephone consult.
My vet until a year or so ago was privately owned and run but has been sold to a large vet group, we have been customers there for 2 decades but I do feel that the service has gone down hill since the buyout and have been contemplating a move elsewhere for a while, but was going to hold off until my daughter was settled somewhere when she had finished her degree and register there, however her most recent placement she still keeps in regular contact with, so my thoughts have been to perhaps register with them.
So after that ramble, do you think £38 for a telephone consult is taking the pee?
Phoned the vets first thing, knowing they are only accepting emergencies on the premises, was told I'd get a call back for a telephone consultation, the cost being £38, which is the same as an on-site one.
Got the call back, and was prescribed pain killers and antibiotics which I could collect later; £76 in total.
Now I can afford £76 and I want Daisy sorted, however I do feel that £38 for 2.5 minutes on the phone is an awful lot of money, I didn't bring it up at the time as I know times are difficult currently and I appreciate there are premises, staff, costs etc that need to be paid for but to charge me £38 for a quick chat over the phone just seems wrong, especially as all three of my dogs are on their pet plan and have been for many years and they are all overdue their boosters and annual checkups due to CV19.
My daughter is coming up to the end of year 2 of a 3 year vet nurse degree and told me that her last placement are only charging £10 for a telephone consult.
My vet until a year or so ago was privately owned and run but has been sold to a large vet group, we have been customers there for 2 decades but I do feel that the service has gone down hill since the buyout and have been contemplating a move elsewhere for a while, but was going to hold off until my daughter was settled somewhere when she had finished her degree and register there, however her most recent placement she still keeps in regular contact with, so my thoughts have been to perhaps register with them.
So after that ramble, do you think £38 for a telephone consult is taking the pee?
So, to give some background, I'm not a small animal vet, but I sold my shares in my mixed practice to a corporate group called Independent VetCare nearly 3 years ago, and I've found them to be caring and business savvy, which has often been lacking in vets. Vets have been instructed by the RCVS to only meet clients and their animals when necessary, which in my view includes an anal gland abscess, very sore indeed. However, most of the consultation process for this could be carried out remotely over the phone, hence the outcome described by the OP. Our policy is that if the condition later needs a vet to examine the animal, then there is no fee for what is essentially a follow up consult, I beleive most of our fellow practices are doing the same, but can't be sure.
Our aim is to keep animals as healthy and happy as possible given the difficulties of social distancing and providing animal care. We have furloughed a lot of staff but our costs are still very present. If you believe that a telephone consult is too expensive than vote with your feet, we try very hard to accommodate what our clients and patients need or want but it is not easy. I think we charge £30 for a phone consult and i have listened to some of them, they are long-winded and pretty exhaustive, and we have had complaints about charging, but if we don't charge enough to cover our running costs, you will lose vet practices. There are a large number of franchised vets who have shut their doors and either not offer cover or closed for good, I don;t think this is acceptable nor common amongst corporate practices as they all want to continue as practices serving their client base.
Anyway, costs are there, a 2 minute consult is pretty poor in my opinion, but until an attempt at normality returns to small animal work, then we have to accept the guidelines on how we meet our patients and clients, and what we are allowed to offer as a service.
Our aim is to keep animals as healthy and happy as possible given the difficulties of social distancing and providing animal care. We have furloughed a lot of staff but our costs are still very present. If you believe that a telephone consult is too expensive than vote with your feet, we try very hard to accommodate what our clients and patients need or want but it is not easy. I think we charge £30 for a phone consult and i have listened to some of them, they are long-winded and pretty exhaustive, and we have had complaints about charging, but if we don't charge enough to cover our running costs, you will lose vet practices. There are a large number of franchised vets who have shut their doors and either not offer cover or closed for good, I don;t think this is acceptable nor common amongst corporate practices as they all want to continue as practices serving their client base.
Anyway, costs are there, a 2 minute consult is pretty poor in my opinion, but until an attempt at normality returns to small animal work, then we have to accept the guidelines on how we meet our patients and clients, and what we are allowed to offer as a service.
I accept that we are in difficult times and accept that business's have to work differently and to new guidelines; Barry and Daphne are finally being groomed Tuesday week, of which the cost is higher than previous times due to new procedures which have been put in place which groomers have to adhere to, I fully understand and accept this.
It does however grate that a phone call which was less than 3 minutes long, has cost me the same as if I've gone over to the premises with Daisy, particularly when I've told the receptionist the problem which she has relayed to the vet who confirmed from my records that this has been an issue in the past.....I've basically told the vet what the problem is.
If it was £15/£20 I would have been fine and I feel it would have been an appropriate cost, anyway I've already emailed an independent vet who is just up the road, asking for pet plan prices.
It does however grate that a phone call which was less than 3 minutes long, has cost me the same as if I've gone over to the premises with Daisy, particularly when I've told the receptionist the problem which she has relayed to the vet who confirmed from my records that this has been an issue in the past.....I've basically told the vet what the problem is.
If it was £15/£20 I would have been fine and I feel it would have been an appropriate cost, anyway I've already emailed an independent vet who is just up the road, asking for pet plan prices.
£38 for that sounds greedy to me. Not sure I should mention a name here.
The independent vet I used for many years sold out to a particularly avaricious chain . The service has deteriorated, the practise cats have gone ( blamed on health and safety ! ) the helpful staff have left and the costs have quadrupled. Please support independent vets and avoid the ones owned by chains/ venture capitalists etc as they exist only to line their own pockets, whilst working the frontline staff as hard as possible.
As an aside,buy a dog shaped dog i.e not exaggerated in size. length features etc and hope it lives a long healthy life.
The independent vet I used for many years sold out to a particularly avaricious chain . The service has deteriorated, the practise cats have gone ( blamed on health and safety ! ) the helpful staff have left and the costs have quadrupled. Please support independent vets and avoid the ones owned by chains/ venture capitalists etc as they exist only to line their own pockets, whilst working the frontline staff as hard as possible.
As an aside,buy a dog shaped dog i.e not exaggerated in size. length features etc and hope it lives a long healthy life.
We had a telephone consultation and prescription for our dog last week. My wife paid over the phone. We are so confident our vet's charges are fair I didn't even check the price when I picked it up.
Checked just now. Total was £48 for phone consultation including emailed pics. Course of antibiotics and steroids. Very fair I think.
Independent vet we have been with for getting near 30 years.
Checked just now. Total was £48 for phone consultation including emailed pics. Course of antibiotics and steroids. Very fair I think.
Independent vet we have been with for getting near 30 years.
B3NJY said:
We’ve had exactly the same with one of ours due to a skin condition, 2 x video calls in 5 days totalling £76 for 10 minutes work. Not bad work for them
Being married to a vet who has previously run her own practice I can assure you they are not the gold mine you may think they are.As has been said several times already; if practices lose money and go bust then there will be no one to care for your pets.
I've yet to meet a vet who is in practice for the money but I've met plenty who take on the heart ache of having to treat animals when clients can't afford the treatment.
£8 for the advice
£30 for having the knowledge to give the advice.
Seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Not sure why people think others shouldn't make money after however many years they had to go to university.
Just a question for the OP, assuming you're working from home ATM, have you reduced your salary massively because you don't have to pay to drive to work or buy your lunch at M&S during the lockdown?
I'm guessing not, but you're expecting a vet to reduce their charges because they're talking on the phone?
£30 for having the knowledge to give the advice.
Seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Not sure why people think others shouldn't make money after however many years they had to go to university.
Just a question for the OP, assuming you're working from home ATM, have you reduced your salary massively because you don't have to pay to drive to work or buy your lunch at M&S during the lockdown?
I'm guessing not, but you're expecting a vet to reduce their charges because they're talking on the phone?
Our dog had an emergency eye opp the other month, right at the start of lock down. We had to go to a specialist in Solihull after a video call and then a trip to the local specialist!
It was a pre authorised claim, so we didn't have to pay. But I'm sure the initial consultation was over £400. From the time our dog went in, to the call, was about 10 minutes. Total for the eye opp in the end was nearly £4k.
Mad. He didn't lose the eye though and is down to just 6 eye drops a day now, so all good!
It was a pre authorised claim, so we didn't have to pay. But I'm sure the initial consultation was over £400. From the time our dog went in, to the call, was about 10 minutes. Total for the eye opp in the end was nearly £4k.
Mad. He didn't lose the eye though and is down to just 6 eye drops a day now, so all good!
sociopath said:
£8 for the advice
£30 for having the knowledge to give the advice.
Seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Not sure why people think others shouldn't make money after however many years they had to go to university.
Just a question for the OP, assuming you're working from home ATM, have you reduced your salary massively because you don't have to pay to drive to work or buy your lunch at M&S during the lockdown?
I'm guessing not, but you're expecting a vet to reduce their charges because they're talking on the phone?
I'm actually on furlough. £30 for having the knowledge to give the advice.
Seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Not sure why people think others shouldn't make money after however many years they had to go to university.
Just a question for the OP, assuming you're working from home ATM, have you reduced your salary massively because you don't have to pay to drive to work or buy your lunch at M&S during the lockdown?
I'm guessing not, but you're expecting a vet to reduce their charges because they're talking on the phone?
I just feel that £38 for less than a 3 minute chat about a definate issue which I've told them about "Daisy has burst one of her anal glands", for the vet to say "yes I can see from her history that this has been an issue", no clarification or any further digging by the vet to make sure that yes it's definately this issue, "can you e-mail a photo" or "can we do a video call to make sure that this is the problem" seems a bit rich.
If I'd taken her in during "normal times", we would have had a chat about her general health, the vet would have done a quick health check, she would have checked the other anal gland and likely expressed it, just to be sure, all for the same price.
Local vet up the road charge full price for a telephone consult, daughters most recent placement are £10, her previous placement charge £20.
HTP99 said:
sociopath said:
£8 for the advice
£30 for having the knowledge to give the advice.
Seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Not sure why people think others shouldn't make money after however many years they had to go to university.
Just a question for the OP, assuming you're working from home ATM, have you reduced your salary massively because you don't have to pay to drive to work or buy your lunch at M&S during the lockdown?
I'm guessing not, but you're expecting a vet to reduce their charges because they're talking on the phone?
I'm actually on furlough. £30 for having the knowledge to give the advice.
Seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Not sure why people think others shouldn't make money after however many years they had to go to university.
Just a question for the OP, assuming you're working from home ATM, have you reduced your salary massively because you don't have to pay to drive to work or buy your lunch at M&S during the lockdown?
I'm guessing not, but you're expecting a vet to reduce their charges because they're talking on the phone?
I just feel that £38 for less than a 3 minute chat about a definate issue which I've told them about "Daisy has burst one of her anal glands", for the vet to say "yes I can see from her history that this has been an issue", no clarification or any further digging by the vet to make sure that yes it's definately this issue, "can you e-mail a photo" or "can we do a video call to make sure that this is the problem" seems a bit rich.
If I'd taken her in during "normal times", we would have had a chat about her general health, the vet would have done a quick health check, she would have checked the other anal gland and likely expressed it, just to be sure, all for the same price.
Local vet up the road charge full price for a telephone consult, daughters most recent placement are £10, her previous placement charge £20.
If you aren't happy, find a cheaper vet, as you say you know of some.
Gassing Station | All Creatures Great & Small | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff